Background/structure
The Code of ethics of the Journal Ekonomika preduzeća is based on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Code of Conduct of Journal Editors, as a benchmark in the field of professional and scientific Journal publishing. The code of ethics is comprised of two segments:
the mandatory Code of Conduct for the Journal Editor in Chief standards and the aspirational Best Practice recommendations (in segments where recommendations can be identified). The mandatory Code of Conduct for the Journal Editor in Chief standards are shown in regular script and with numbered clauses, and the more aspirational Best Practice recommendations are shown in italics.
 
1.   General duties and responsibilities of the Editor in Chief
 
1.1.  The Editor in Chief is to be accountable for everything published within the journal. This means the Editor in Chief should:
 
1.2.  strive to meet the needs of readers and authors;
 
1.3.  strive to constantly improve the journal;
 
1.4.  have processes in place to assure the quality of the material the journal publishes;
 
1.5.  champion freedom of expression;
 
1.6.  maintain the integrity of the academic record;
 
1.7.  preclude business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standards;
 
1.8.  always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   actively seeking the views of authors, readers, reviewers and other editorial board members about ways of improving the journal’s processes;
 
•   encouraging and being aware of research into peer review and publishing and reassessing the journal’s processes in the light of new findings;
 
•   working to persuade the publisher to provide appropriate resources, guidance from experts;
 
•   supporting initiatives designed to reduce research and publication misconduct;
 
•   supporting initiatives to educate researchers about publication ethics;
 
•   assessing the effects of the journal policies on author and reviewer behaviour and revising policies, as required, to encourage responsible behaviour and discourage misconduct;
 
•   ensuring that any press releases issued by the journal reflect the message of the reported article and put it into context.
 
2.   Relations with readers
 
2.1.  Readers should be informed about who has funded research or other scholarly work and whether the funders had any role in the research and its publication and, if so, what this was.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   ensuring that all published reports and reviews of research have been reviewed by suitably qualified reviewers (including statistical review where appropriate);
 
•   ensuring that non-peer-reviewed sections of the journal are clearly identified;
 
•   adopting processes that encourage accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting including technical editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists;
 
•   considering developing a transparency policy to encourage maximum disclosure about the provenance of non-research articles;
 
•   adopting authorship or contributorship systems that promote good practice (i.e. so that listings accurately reflect who did the work) and discourage misconduct (e.g. ghost and guest authors);
 
3.   Relations with authors
 
3.1.  The Editor in Chief’s decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication should be based on the paper’s importance, originality and clarity, and the study’s validity and its relevance to the remit of the journal;
 
3.2.  The Editor in Chief should not reverse decisions to accept submissions unless serious problems are identified with the submission;
 
3.3.  The new Editors in Chief should not overturn decisions to publish submissions made by the previous Editor in Chief, unless serious problems are identified;
 
3.4.  A description of peer review processes should be published, and the Editor in Chief should be ready to justify any important deviation from the described processes;
 
3.5.  The journal should have a declared mechanism for authors to appeal against editorial decisions;
 
3.6.  The Editor in Chief should publish guidance to authors on everything that is expected of them. This guidance should be regularly updated;
 
3.7.  The Editor in Chief should provide guidance about criteria for authorship and/or who should be listed as a contributor following the standards within the relevant field.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   reviewing author instructions regularly and providing links to relevant guidelines;
 
•   publishing relevant competing interests for all contributors and publishing corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication;
 
•   ensuring that appropriate reviewers are selected for submissions (i.e. individuals who are able to judge the work and are free from disqualifying competing interests);
 
•   respecting requests from authors that an individual should not review their submission, if these are well-reasoned and practicable;  
 
•   publishing details of how the journal handles cases of suspected misconduct;
 
•   publishing submission and acceptance dates for articles;
 
4.   Relations with reviewers
 
4.1.  The Editor in Chief should provide guidance to reviewers on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence. This guidance should be regularly updated and should refer or link to this code;
 
4.2.  The Editor in Chief should require reviewers to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission;
 
4.3.  The Editor in Chief should have systems to ensure that peer reviewers’ identities are protected, unless they use an open review system that is declared to authors and reviewers;
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   encouraging reviewers to comment on ethical questions and possible research and publication misconduct raised by submissions (e.g. unethical research design, inappropriate data manipulation and presentation);
 
•   encouraging reviewers to comment on the originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publication and plagiarism;
 
•   considering providing reviewers with tools to detect related publications (e.g. links to cited references and bibliographic searches);
 
•   sending reviewers’ comments to authors in their entirety, unless they contain offensive or libellous remarks;
 
•   seeking to acknowledge the contribution of reviewers to the journal;
 
•   encouraging academic institutions to recognise peer review activities as part of the scholarly process;
 
•   monitoring the performance of peer reviewers and taking steps to ensure this is of high standard;
 
•   developing and maintaining a database of suitable reviewers and updating this on the basis of reviewer performance;
 
•   ceasing to use reviewers who consistently produce discourteous, poor quality or late reviews;
 
•   ensuring that the reviewer database reflects the community for their journal and adding new reviewers as needed;
 
•   using a wide range of sources (not just personal contacts) to identify potential new reviewers (e.g. author suggestions, bibliographic databases);
 
5.   Relations with editorial board members
 
5.1.  The Editor in Chief should provide new editorial board members with guidelines on everything that is expected of them and should keep existing members updated on new policies and developments.
 
 
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   having policies in place for handling submissions from editorial board members to ensure unbiased review;
 
•   identifying suitably qualified editorial board members who can actively contribute to the development and good management of the journal;
 
•   regularly reviewing the composition of the editorial board;
 

• providing clear guidance to editorial board members about their expected functions and duties, which might include:

 
—  acting as ambassadors for the journal;
 
—  supporting and promoting the journal;
 
— seeking out the best authors and best work (e.g. from meeting abstracts) and actively encouraging submissions;
 
— reviewing submissions to the journal;
 
— accepting commissions to write editorials, reviews and commentaries on papers in their specialist area;
 
— attending and contributing to editorial board meetings;
 
•   consulting editorial board members periodically (e.g. once a year) to gauge their opinions about the running of the journal, informing them of any changes to journal policies and identifying future challenge.
 
6.   Relations with journal owners and publishers
 
6.1.  The relationship of the Editor in Chief with publishers and owners is often complex, but should be based firmly on the principle of editorial independence;
 
6.2.  The Editor in Chief should make decisions about which articles to publish based on quality and suitability for the journal and without interference from the journal owner/publisher;
 
6.3.  The Editor in Chief should have a written contract(s) setting out his/her relationship with the journal’s owner and/or publisher;
 
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   establishing mechanisms to handle disagreements between himself/herself and the journal owner/publisher with due process;
 
•   communicating regularly with the journal’s owner and publisher.
 
7.   Editorial and peer review processes
 
7.1.  The Editor in Chief should strive to ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased and timely;
 
7.2.  The Editor in Chief should have systems to ensure that material submitted to the journal remains confidential while under review.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   ensuring that people involved with the editorial process (including themselves) receive adequate training and keep abreast of the latest guidelines, recommendations and evidence about peer review and journal management;
 
•   keeping informed about research into peer review and technological advances;
 
•   adopting peer review methods best suited for the journal and the research community it serves;
 
•   reviewing peer review practices periodically to see if improvement is possible;
 
8.   Quality assurance
 
8.1.   The Editor in Chief should take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material he/she publishes, recognising that journals and sections within journals will have different aims and standards.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•   having systems in place to detect falsified data (e.g. inappropriately manipulated photographic images or plagiarised text) either for routine use or when suspicions are raised;
 
•   basing decisions about journal house style on relevant evidence of factors that raise the quality of reporting (e.g. adopting structured abstracts) rather than simply on aesthetic grounds or personal preference.
 
9.   Protecting individual data
 
9.1.   The Editor in Chief must obey laws on confidentiality in his/her own jurisdiction. Regardless of local statutes, however, he/she should always protect the confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•    declaring his/her policy on publishing individual data and explaining this clearly to authors.
 
10.   Dealing with possible misconduct
 
10.1. The Editor in Chief has the duty to act if he/she suspects misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to him/her. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers;
 
10.2. The Editor in Chief should not simply reject papers that raise concerns about possible misconduct. He/she is ethically obliged to pursue alleged cases;
 
10.3. The Editor in Chief should first seek a response from those suspected of misconduct. If he/she is not satisfied with the response, he/she should ask the relevant employers, or institution, or some appropriate body (perhaps a regulatory body or national research integrity organization) to investigate;
 
10.4. The Editor in Chief should make all reasonable efforts to ensure that a proper investigation into alleged misconduct is conducted; if this does not happen, the Editor in Chief should make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem. This is an onerous, but important duty.
 
11.   Ensuring the integrity of the academic record
 
11.1. Errors, inaccurate or misleading statements must be corrected promptly and with due prominence.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•    taking steps to reduce covert redundant publication;
 
•    ensuring that published material is securely archived (e.g. via online permanent repositories);
 
•    having systems in place to give authors the opportunity to make original research articles freely available.
 
12.   Intellectual property
 
12.1. The Editor in Chief should be alert to intellectual property issues and work with his/her publisher to handle potential breaches of intellectual property laws and conventions.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•    adopting systems for detecting plagiarism (e.g. software, searching for similar titles) in submitted items (either routinely or when suspicions are raised);
 
•    supporting authors whose copyright has been breached or who have been the victims of plagiarism;
 
•    being prepared to work with his/her publisher to defend the authors’ rights and pursue offenders (e.g. by requesting retractions or removal of material from websites) irrespective of whether the journal holds the copyright.
 
13.   Encouraging debate
 
13.1. The Editor in Chief should encourage and be willing to consider cogent criticisms of work published in his/her journal;
 
13.2. Authors of criticised material should be given the opportunity to respond;
 
13.3. Studies reporting negative results should not be excluded.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•    being open to research that challenges previous work published in the journal.
 
14.   Complaints
 
14.1. The Editor in Chief should respond promptly to complaints and should ensure there is a way for dissatisfied complainants to take complaints further. This mechanism should be made clear in the journal;
 
15.   Commercial considerations
 
15.1. The Journal should have policies and systems in place to ensure that commercial considerations do not affect editorial decisions.
 
15.2. The Editor in Chief should have declared policies on advertising in relation to the content of the journal and on processes for publishing sponsored supplements;
 
15.3. Reprints should be published as they appear in the journal unless a correction needs to be included in which case it should be clearly identified.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•    publishing a general description of the journal’s income sources;
 
•    ensuring that the peer review process for sponsored supplements is the same as that used for the main journal;
 
•    ensuring that items in sponsored supplements are accepted solely on the basis of academic merit and interest to readers and decisions about such supplements are not influenced by commercial considerations.
 
16.   Conflicts of interest
 
16.1. The Editor in Chief should have systems for managing his/her own conflicts of interest as well as those of his/her staff, authors, reviewers and editorial board members;
 
16.2. The journal should have a declared process for handling submissions from the editors, employees or members of the editorial board to ensure unbiased review.
 
Best Practice for the Editor in Chief within this segment includes:
 
•    publishing lists of relevant interests (financial, academic and other kinds) of all editorial staff and members of editorial boards (which should be updated at least annually).